Southtrap

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  'Aye,' he answered. 'She steers like a bitch and kicks like a mule.'

  The tow was finally made fast and the motor-launch tugged the windjammer slowly across the quiet water. The calm didn't last long. Once we hit the waves rolling in through the entrance the launch's towing speed fell off sharply. I began to wonder whether it had even enough power to fetch Botany Bay through the entrance. With the waves' thrust and the tow falling slack and then jerking taut again our speed was down to about one knot. Botany Bay was still the cork in the bottle.

  The launch edged through the arch into the open sea beyond. Botany Bay dragged at her heels. Would the cork get out of the bottle? 'Hold her!' I told the helmsman. 'She'll swing when the wind catches her…'

  She did, even before she reached the open sea. The bluff bow offered maximum resistance to the wind; the wind took full advantage. It jerked her head round in spite of the motor-launch. I dared not risk setting sail. The starboard mainyard scraped the ice-cliff, bumped, scraped again. Pieces of ice rattled on the deck. In her situation the ice portico flanking the entrance had become a dead lee for the ship. One rag of canvas would have driven her against it.

  Botany Bay rebounded from touching the ice; the tow snapped taut; she lurched forward again. Half the length of the ship was now through the neck of the bottle. But the wind was pushing her round, round once again towards the menacing portico.

  I simply had to chance the forward momentum a sail would give. It was a question of checks and balances. Would the sail's forward thrust be enough to carry her to safety or would the simultaneous sideways tug throw her to destruction against the towering cliff?

  I made my decision. 'Hands aloft!' I shouted. 'Double-reefed topsails! Get the sails on her!'

  The fore tops'l broke out first. It only veered her head closer towards danger.

  Then the main topsail also billowed like bubble-gum blown from a giant child's lips.

  'Put your helm up! Helm hard up!''

  The veins started in the steersman's face as he battled with the primitive gear.

  The wind bit the sails; the deck canted to their power. Rollers broke over the deadly ice, hard on our beam. It was less than a ship's length away.

  Slowly, jibbing like a thrashed horse, Botany Bay clawed her way.

  Then she inched clear with a spurt of foam bursting on either side of her blunt bows and drenching the foc's'le.

  'Swing that launch inboard!' I shouted. 'Use the crojack yard before it knocks a hole in the hull!'

  Lines went down to the boat, which was now alongside after having cast off the tow. It was secured and hoisted aboard. Wegger and Ullmann, streaming sea-water, climbed out of it on to the quarterdeck where I was.

  Botany Bay was drawing steadily away from the ice-trap which had so nearly destroyed her. The Quest tumbled, unmanageable, further out to sea.

  I strode across to the binnacle housing the compass.

  'Steer east by north.' I ordered.

  Prince Edward Island!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The main force of the storm hit Botany Bay shortly after two o'clock that afternoon.

  From the time the ship had broken free of the iceberg she had been running free under triple-reefed main and fore topsails with a strong quartering sea and gale. There was also a rag of trysail in the mizzen stays to try and help the steering. The wind had steadied into the south-west in a full gale. Handling a square-rigger was as unfamiliar to me as driving a veteran car for the first time. And this was at open throttle.

  A tremendous sea was building up and I blessed Botany Bay's square, heavy stern. The waves would race up astern and tower ready to burst and poop the ship. Then I would hang on, waiting for the inevitable explosion which would sweep the ship and everything on deck into oblivion. But it did not come. The heavy stern would lift and in a flash the ship would lurch into the trough. The sails would go slack as the wind was cut off by the depth of the rollers. Then she would rise to the next crest and the sails would crash like gunshots as the wind caught them anew. She would find her keel, tear away again with a shock which seemed to set every scrap of standing rigging thrumming. It was a process which repeated itself time and again. The wheel was kicking like a rodeo jumper; to help Bent I brought along a young man with shoulders like a blacksmith. Kearnay's lifelines were in full use.

  At the start, Linn had been on deck with me and I had lent her my binoculars for a last look at the Quest.

  'They're all coming out on deck!' she had told me.

  'Heaven help them, Linn.'

  'That applies to us too, John,' she replied gravely.

  But we also had that space-probe-sized instrument now transmitting from under her weatherproof. And from the buoy aboard the Quest.

  The thought of the transmitter and what could happen if Wegger by some mischance spotted it fuelled my tension. I had decided that the ship could spare me for a few minutes while I settled Linn below, out of view of the hijackers. I gave orders, gathered up Linn's bag, and we hurried below.

  When we were out of sight of the deck Linn stopped. Her lips came hard against mine, against my cheeks, my eyes.

  'Darling! Darling! Darling!'

  I drew her to me. I detected the outline of the aluminium box inside her clothes.

  She eyed me between tears and laughter. 'I'm pregnant with secrets, my love!'

  'That transmitter frightens me, my love,' I said in a low voice. 'We've got to hide it somewhere else, quick. I die every time Wegger looks at you.'

  We were in the central gangway dividing the various exhibits in their cubicles and to our right was a horrifying real 'coffin bath' exhibit which showed convicts being thrown into salt water after being flogged until they fell unconscious. Tough-faced warders were apparently trying to revive some unfortunate.

  'Nothing for us there,' I said. 'We mustn't be seen searching around, Linn.'

  'We can pretend we're looking for a sleeping place forme, John.'

  The next exhibit depicted a man being flogged at the dreaded triangle or flogging-post; nearby a blacksmith was riveting a huge iron ball round a new convict while a long branding-iron was thrust into the palm of his hand to mark him for life with an arrow.

  'I couldn't stay there, even though I know it's not real,' muttered Linn.

  'No place to hide,' I said, going on to the following exhibit. A man was dismounting from his horse amid a clutter of handcuffs, leg-irons, necklets, pistols and manacles, and a notice above read: 'Captain Starlight, legendary bush-ranger.'

  'John — look, the horse has a real saddle. The saddlebags! Perfect for the transmitter!'

  Linn reached for the zip in her parka. 'Wait.' I gave a searching look in every direction.

  'Okay. That transmitter's dynamite.'

  She pulled it out. It looked ludicrously small and inadequate.

  'It's working?' I asked unnecessarily. 'Sure?'

  'Smit set it operating and it stays so, he said, even if it falls into the sea. It's waterproof, among other marvels.'

  We unbuckled the saddle-bags of Captain Starlight's horse and hid the transmitter inside.

  'I feel as if the world is off my neck, Linn.'

  The creaks and groans of the ship's timbers in the seaway were like a muted chorus of wronged convicts.

  'I've got to get back on deck — use one of these cubicles for a cabin. Maybe there's a bed somewhere as part of an exhibit. Try and make yourself comfortable.'

  'You've no place either, John.'

  Tut me next door to you — horrors don't mean a thing if you're close.'

  She smiled and said gently, There's only one penguin-rug — we'll have to share, my darling.' Then she kissed me. 'Look after yourself, up there.'

  'Don't come on deck unless you have to — the seas aren't funny.'

  They weren't then, when I kissed her goodbye. That had been a couple of hours ago. They were even less so now.

  I was hanging on to the weather rigging, a captain's station. The feel of
this ship was coming through the soles of my feet, just as a racing-driver steers by the feel of the seat of his pants. Botany Bay was starting to lie over more and more as the wind worked up, and even her return roll was stiffening against the thrust of her storm canvas.

  I felt her go over — and watched fascinated and afraid while she lay over until her lee gunnel was almost level with the water as if she meant never to come up again. Then the dense streaks of foam which were the crests of the rollers toppled, tumbled over, exploded, and vomited across the main deck and a welter of water poured into the waist. It seemed that the old-design hull could never have enough life in it to throw off the tons of water. Botany Bay hung like that, paused, and then began the reverse roll to right herself, taking her time, as if sea and waves didn't matter. Back and back she went, against the drag of the tops'ls and power of the gale, until her main yardarm dipped into the wild seas on the opposite side.

  Each time Botany Bay did it my heart came into my mouth; yet right herself she did until I was forced to accept that this was her way of sailing. To anyone accustomed to a modern yacht's manners, Botany Bay was terrifying.

  Now, however, she was close to the limit. I would have to reduce sail soon, free her of some of the leverage aloft.

  I put the modern battery-operated megaphone to my mouth.

  'All hands! All hands! Aloft and stow! Four reefs in the tops'ls!'

  The men dodged out from behind the foc's'le head where they had been sheltering and watched their moment. Gripping the lifelines as the main deck flooded from a sea which burst inboard, they clumped clumsily across the deck in heavy boots and sou'wes-ters to the protection of the life-nets I'd rigged below the weather shrouds. As she rolled to port again, up they went into the rigging with astonishing agility. They would have to fist the thrashing canvas into quiescence: Botany Bay had only single topsails, not the more modern double sails, and their bigger area meant twice the muscle-power.

  One of the men scrambling up the main shrouds stopped, pointed, and shouted something at me. His words were snatched away by the wind. I followed the direction of his hand. There was nothing but an endless succession of racing hills of water. Then the stern lifted, which gave me a wider sight of the horizon.

  I stood rooted at what I saw.

  The approaching snow squall looked like a destroyer's smoke-screen laid across the face of the west. Reaching out fingers towards the labouring ship was a millrace of clouds scudding low almost to mast-height. The squall was still about five kilometres off and travelling like a bullet.

  But ahead of it was the thing which froze my blood.

  It was a monster comber with a long overhanging crest of dense white reaching for the ship like an outrider of the main body of water.

  No ship's stern would ever rise to that.

  Botany Bay was already squirming down a roller, away, as if she realized what was coming.

  I whipped the megaphone to my lips. I gave one of the rarest orders at sea.

  'Stand by for your lives!'

  That killer rudder wouldn't take it either. No two men could hold its rebound, even with its special kicking tackles.

  I turned the megaphone on Ullmann.

  'Ullmann! Get to the wheel! Forget that bloody gun!'

  He stood hesitating.

  I must have sounded like one of the Furies riding the gale when I re-directed my words at him.

  'Ullmann! Lend a hand! Get to that wheel! The whole ocean's coming up astern! Run, man, run!'

  He must have been convinced by my urgency, for he went across the lurching deck to Wegger, passed the strap of his machine-pistol round his arm, and seized the for'ard spokes of the double wheel.

  The young man with the blacksmith's shoulders glanced astern over his shoulder. Many a better man than he had been killed in the Southern Ocean doing that.

  'Keep your eyes front!' I shouted above the wind's roar. 'Don't let her broach to! Keep her head steady!'

  Then I knew I might still help the ship, if the men now in the rigging could manage in time.

  'Set the main tops'l staysail!' I shouted through the megaphone.

  The small triangular sail, which would be high above the swamping effect of the waves as the ship fell into the trough, might just carry her forward enough to ride out the monster when it struck.

  I didn't have time for anything else.

  I threw a bight of rope round the shrouds, lashed myself fast. It was impossible to tell whether the substance which machine-gunned my face was snow, hail, rain, ice or spray. It was equally impossible to hear anything. The wind was hurling itself over the starboard quarter with a roaring, moaning sound which changed to a higher pitch when it struck the rigging. The wild seas smashing against the hull under-wrote the din.

  Then the great roller struck.

  One moment the main deck, poop and helm were visible, the next all I could make out were three masts sticking out of a cauldron of water. I was punched in the back, but the rope held. Water poured over me as if I had been a surfer who had come unstuck from his board. Botany Bay heeled right over, until the main hatch disappeared. The lee main yardarm went deep into the sea.

  I caught a glimpse of the young man with the blacksmith's shoulders being thrown loose and against the for'ard part of the double wheel. He spread-eagled his arms, looking like one of the waxworks figures below stripped for flogging on a grating. The killer wheel jerked again and he was flung head over heels into the scuppers. The breaking wave took him overboard. There was nothing I could do to save him. Ullmann's face 'was purple as the veins stood out as he attempted with Bent to hold the ship from broaching to. The driving spray was too thick even to see what was happening to the men on the foc's'le head.

  'Don't let her head come up!' I tried to yell above the din to the helmsmen.

  No human power would ever bring Botany Bay upright again.

  Her stern lifted, lifted, and the bow went down down.

  She tobogganed into the trough.

  It cut off wind pressure from the reefed tops'ls holding her listed as surely as if they'd blown clean out of their bolt-ropes. From the rigging high above there was a clap like thunder. The small tops'l staysail blew away like an errant albatross's wing.

  Then from the maelstrom on the main deck I saw the top of the main hatch start to emerge; two lifeboats lashed to it were gone. We'd secured the motor-launch aft the mainmast on skids; now I saw it break clear of the foam — intact.

  Botany Bay was making a great fight for it. She possessed an unsuspected buoyancy. The lee ports of the poop deck clanged as hundreds of tons of water poured overboard.

  Then I spotted the young helmsman. He was sprawled out, floating mizzen-yard high, within three metres of the deck. It might as well have been three kilometres. His arms were reaching out helplessly for safety and his mouth was wide.

  Now Botany Bay's mainyard emerged from the spume and she came on to an even keel and started to give that long majestic roll to recovery. The lee poop deck flooded again at the movement and scooped up the young man out of the sea as neatly as if it had been intended. He crawled across the deck and locked his arms round the binnacle.

  'Get back to the wheel!' I shouted. 'Back, man, we'll make it still!'

  The ship lifted as she began her ascent to the crest, shaking her decks clear of hundreds of tons of water like a terrier shaking itself after a bath. Unknown objects washed astern and thumped against the break of the poop.

  If Botany Bay managed to pull herself back to life again, there was only one course left open for me — to heave her to and ride out the storm and give her time to lick her wounds. For wounded she was, as I could feel by the lethargic drag under my feet, which meant that huge quantities of water had poured in below through smashed hatches and skylights. The patched-up leak in the bow had probably broken out afresh. Muscle-power alone would have to rid her bilges of the water — Botany Bay had no mechanical pumps.

  Now Botany Bay was straining as she climbed w
earily out of the trough. Miraculously, the masts were still in her. The foremast seemed askew to me. I saw men still clinging in the rigging where I'd sent them to reef the topsails.

  I ripped off my securing rope and swung myself up to check astern. There couldn't be another wave like that. There was only a plunging, rolling, racing, raging mass of hillocks of water pursuing the injured ship.

  I regained the deck and shouted, 'All hands! All hands! Stand by!'

  Orders were a good thing for a stunned crew. It stopped them from thinking about the death they'd escaped.

  I hadn't given a thought to Wegger. Now I found him beside me.

  'Shotton! What are you doing now?'

  I rounded on him. 'I'm going to heave her to. Put her under a storm trysail and try and fix things. We're lucky to still be afloat and not upside down…'

  He pulled the Luger from his weatherproofing. It seemed a ridiculous token of force after what the Southern Ocean had just thrown at us. Part nerves, part reaction made me laugh in his face.

  'Don't play kids' games, Wegger. If you want to go on living, let me handle this!'

  He aimed the gun at me.

  'Get on!' he ordered. 'Get on, Shotton! To Prince Edward Island! No heaving-to!'

  'You're out of your mind, Wegger! The ship's sinking under us…'

  A crewman, with water and fear all over his face, clawed hand-over-hand along the life-nets and shouted at me.

  'Sir! Sir! Come quick! She's making water for'ard! The patch has come adrift from the hole in her bow — it's pouring in…'

  He stopped when he became aware of Wegger's gun.

  'Get on with it, man!' I said.

  He indicated the foremast. I scarcely needed him to tell me, when I saw the way it was tottering.

  The bowsprit chain-guy's parted again, sir — like it did after we hit the growler — and the foremast's taking the strain. All the rigging's stretching. It'll go overboard any moment!'

  'I'll come.' Before I did so, I addressed the trio of helmsmen. Try and keep her steady — if you want to save your skins!'

  Bent nodded but his eyes remained concentrated aloft. He was too good a helmsman to take his eyes off the sails.